REMOVING QUEEN AND BROOD 73 



sugar syrup is sprinkled freely over the tops of the frames as 

 described previously. The bees gorge themselves in cleaning 

 up the syrup and anxiously seek larvae to be fed. This method 

 of feeding is desirable at the time of giving cells by any method. 



Some breeders leave the prepared cells in the colony to 

 which they are first given until they are sealed. However, a 

 larger number of first class cells will usually be secured by work- 

 ing two colonies together, one as a cell-building colony and the 

 second as a cell-finishing colony. The cell-finishing colony 

 should be equally strong with the cell-starting colony, but not 

 all the brood is taken from it. At the time that the brood is 

 taken from the first colony, part of the brood is removed from 

 another, and the remainder raised above an excluder, leaving 

 the queen in the brood nest below on one frame of brood, and 

 with empty combs in which to continue laying. This we will 

 call the finishing colony. 



Twenty-four hours after the prepared cells have been given 

 to the queenless and broodless bees in the cell-starting hive, we 

 will probably find most of the cells partly built, and the larvae 

 abundantly supplied with royal jelly. If we leave them as 

 they are, some of these cells are likely to be neglected, so that 

 not all will come to maturity. We may now safely remove these 

 cells and after carefully brushing off the nurse bees with a 

 feather, give them to the cell-finishing colony, placing the frames 

 above the excluder. By this time the bees in the second colony 

 will have been forty-eight hours separated from the queen 

 which still remains below the excluder. Since no eggs have 

 been laid with the brood above for this period, the bees are 

 in much the same condition as a colony with a failing queen 

 and accordingly accept the cells as readily, as a rule, as a super- 

 sedure colony will do. 



When the batch of started cells is taken from the starting 

 colony, it is given a second lot of newly prepared cells. This 

 may be repeated regularly for some time. However, the same 

 bees cannot serve as nurses for very long and it will be necessary 



